Year: 2022
Platform: PlayStation 4
Genre: Action/Visual Novel
Review Date: 8/4/25
Rating: ***
Tsumugi Tamaori is a high school girl who gets sent back in time to June 21, 1582, which is the day that the legendary Oda Nobunaga died. Or was supposed to. Someone is messing with the time stream, and it's up to Tsumugi and three female ninjas to travel to the underworld and defeat the Demon Lord so that history gets back to normal. Apart from some basic sword training, Tsumugi is woefully unprepared and is more interested in taking selfies with her new ninja friends, two of which are from other worlds. She introduces herself to Nobunaga as "a Gen Z girl," as if that would mean anything to him. And if we're being honest, that doesn't even mean anything to me.
While publisher D3 is known for their budget titles, this is a full price offering from them. However, don't expect a great improvement in quality, because you won't find it. The game takes a lot of inspiration from the "Onechanbara" and "Senran Kagura" series, but it's a lot less pervy and has no panty shots or breast jiggling whatsoever. What it does have is some light sapphic romance, as the ninjas find themselves enchanted by Tsumugi's charms. Certain ninja powers are unlocked by hugging and kissing, but I didn't make it that far in my quest.
The majority of the game plays out like a visual novel, with the characters cycling through the same dozen or so expressions. While some of the dialog advances the plot and tries to explain the world they're in, most of it revolves around character bonding, since that's a key element in the game. The more you bond with each character, the more battle techniques you unlock. And of course the things that Tsumugi talks about are utterly cringe-inducing: selfies, social media, her phone, food, clothes, dieting, boobs, how icky boys are, etc. You know, girl stuff. Or what creepy old men imagine what girls talk about. The saving grace to all of the seemingly endless talking (and they do talk A LOT) is that the voice acting is superb. In fact, the voice acting is by far the best aspect of the game.
After all of the talking is done, the girls finally get thrown into battle. The levels are typically short and can be finished in a few minutes. Enemies mostly consist of armored skeletons and larger mini-bosses, but there's very little variety. The levels are attractive, but plain and sparse. They're very linear, so there's no chance of getting lost or sidetracked. Movement is smooth, but the platforming sections that require jumping and double-jumping feel very clunky and imprecise. Combat also feels awkward and combo trajectories are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Apart from an evasive roll, there's very little you can do to defend yourself, and some enemies can wipe you out in just one or two hits. The key to victory is your ninja support team, which adds another level of complexity. You have one active support character at a time, but their ninja skills are only available when their attack gauge is full, so you have to constantly switch out your support character to one that's ready to fight while also managing your own fight. And combat isn't easy. I eventually had to give up about 20% through the game at the first boss encounter, because they were so ridiculously overpowered and their attacks were unblockable and unavoidable.
With enough practice and perseverance I might have been able to make more progress and maybe reach the halfway point in the game, but I couldn't find a compelling reason to waste any more time with it. It's not a bad game by any means, and it's certainly MUCH better than the "Onechanbara" and "Senran Kagura" games that I've played. But it's also not that interesting or fun, and the dialog really becomes tiresome. Given the repetitive nature of the combat and level design, I felt like I'd already seen most of what the game had to offer, with the exception of the hugging and kissing attacks, and can those really be worth the extra time and effort? At my age, I doubt it. There are too many other games in my backlog to play.